Like pieces of a puzzle
by slowroad
Summary: It's been eight months since Sherlock came back from the dead. Sherlock and John have been together for over seven months now and John wants to ask Sherlock to marry him. But he hesitates because he is afraid that Sherlock will laugh at him. This is a sequel to my story 'Sherlock and John', but it can be read alone. It is not related in any way to season 3.


**Disclaimer: These characters were created by ACD and in this version by Steve Moffat and Mark Gatiss. They don't belong to me. I just like to play with them.**

**...**

**Note: This story is told in the words and the voice of John Watson.**

...

It's been eight months since Sherlock came back to me. We've been together for most of that time and I am so happy I can scarcely believe it. It's like something in my life has finally clicked...one last piece of the puzzle, as it were, and now I that I have him, I am whole. I know how sappy that sounds, but embarrassed as I am to admit it, it is the truth. Now I'm not going to claim that everything is always perfect between us. It's not. We still fight. We still have our disagreements; he routinely gets on my nerves and I frequently irritate him with my fussing about food and sleep.

But this stuff is all transitory. It comes and goes. What stays is the absolute certainty that we belong together. If our year apart taught us anything, it is that we cannot live without each other. So we carry on, being together, learning to adapt to each other, learning when to push and when to give in and we become more a part of each other as time goes on.

He still makes me breakfast every morning. He still texts me at work several times a day. He still runs after killers and clues with no care for his life. I follow him with my gun and do all I can to keep him alive. We are what we have always been...best friends, partners, companions and soul mates. We're Sherlock and John.

...

That should be enough and most of the time it is, but I can't help wanting more sometimes. I know we're going to be together no matter what, but I can't help wanting to marry him. I know he'll laugh at me if I suggest any such thing. But I can't help it. I'm a bit conventional...I don't want to keep calling him my partner. Accurate as that term is, it makes what we have seem like a business transaction. Husband is by far the better word for what we are to each other, so why not? Because Sherlock will laugh at me, that's why not.

Which doesn't explain why I was at a jewellery store on my lunch break, looking at wedding bands. There was a pair of matching platinum bands that had caught my eye as I was walking past and I just had to step in and take a closer look. They were beautiful and elegant and I could see one of them on Sherlock's finger...slender and beautiful as his fingers are, this band of platinum with the one tiny diamond would be perfect for him. I stared at that ring for another couple of minutes and then I put it back in its case and left.

...

Sherlock was waiting for me when I got home that night. He was sitting in his favourite chair with his feet up on the coffee table, working on my laptop and sipping tea. It was obvious from the crumbs on the plate next to the cup that Mrs Hudson had been baking again.

"There you are," Sherlock said the moment I walked in. He put the laptop aside and got up. He came to me and swept me up in a hug. He held me tight and nuzzled against my neck like an affectionate puppy. I put my hands around him and kissed his cheek.

"Missed me, did you?" I said.

"Acutely. I can't tell you how boring everything becomes when you're not here, John."

Sherlock has this way of saying exactly what he's thinking when it's just the two of us. Particularly when it comes to his feelings for me and I'm always startled by how honest he can be

"Well, It's a good thing I'm home then."

Sherlock drew back and looked at me intently for a moment. "Now go take that shower you're so desperate for," he said softly.

"Okay." I kissed him lightly and then I began to make my way up the stairs.

"And John," Sherlock called. "Dress up for me will you?"

"Dress up? Why?"

"I want to take you out to dinner," Sherlock said.

"Why?" I said again, a smile tugging at my lips. This was starting to sound exactly like a conversation that we had had seven months ago, the night that we'd got together, in fact. I remember being half way up the stairs when Sherlock called after me and said he wanted to take me out to dinner. I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

"I don't need a reason to take you out, now do I?" he said with a smirk. It was obvious that he was thinking about that day too.

"I suppose not. Where are we going?" I said, sticking to the script. Of course I knew we were going to Angelo's, but it was obvious that Sherlock wanted this conversation to play out just the way it had all those months ago. I knew that he was up to something, but I also knew that he wouldn't tell me what it was until he was good and ready. So I played along.

"Angelo's," he said.

"Why Angelo's?"

"Because that was where you first told me that you love me."

How well I remember that evening...Sherlock sitting across the table from me, looking utterly gorgeous as the candle light reflected off his face. I still remember the way he'd looked at me as he waited for me to finally accept the fact that I love him, a fact that I spent years denying vehemently. It was at Angelo's that we'd had our first real conversation and our first non-date and it was at Angelo's that we had finally become a couple. We'd been there several times over the past few months, but clearly, tonight was going to be different.

...

We were at Angelo's, sitting at our favourite table by the window, looking out onto the street and talking softly. We drank the wine and ate the food and relaxed into a now very familiar rhythm of conversation and silence, each of us just happy to be here, just happy to be together. The plates were cleared. Angelo brought us some coffee and I sat there looking at Sherlock, wondering for the millionth time how on earth I had managed to get so lucky. Sherlock was looking at me too. He was looking at me like he was searching for something...

"What is it, love?" I said.

"John, will you marry me?" he said.

That question had come so out of the blue that I was stunned and unable to say anything.

He drew a small box out of his pocket and set it on the table. He opened it and I found myself looking at the very same rings that I had been admiring a few hours ago...

"How on earth..." I began.

"Mycroft," he said.

"Of course."

"I take it you really liked these," he said as he picked up one of the rings and turned it around in his fingers.

"Yeah I do. They remind me of you."

"Me?"

"Yeah," I said, reaching for the other ring. "Just look at it. It is so very beautiful, so timeless and so effortlessly elegant."

"And you think I am all those things?"

"Yeah."

For a moment he looked like he had no idea what to say. "You never cease to astonish me," he said.

He glanced at the ring once more. "I think this ring is perfect for you too. You know why? The first word that comes to mind when I look at it is pure and that is you, John. Beautiful both inside and out. The best, most generous man I have ever met."

I flushed at that. We looked at each other for a long moment. I reached for Sherlock and took his hands in mine.

"Why didn't you buy them?" he said. He was curious. He had probably been trying to figure it out for a while now.

"Honestly, I thought you would laugh at me."

"Laugh at you? Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. I just figured you would find the idea of marriage unnecessary and redundant and downright ridiculous."

"Marriage to someone else, perhaps, but not you, John. Never you. I would be thrilled to call you my husband, to be able to lay such a public claim on you. I love the idea of putting a ring on your finger and declaring that you're taken. It'll keep all those pesky waitress away, at any rate..."

His reasoning was so entirely Sherlock.

"But I must say that I find it astonishing that you would want to tie yourself to me in that way," he continued.

"I'm already tied to you in every way that matters, Sherlock. So why not this? I want to call you my husband too, you know."

He smiled at that. It was his special 'just for John" smile that never failed to melt my insides.

"Okay," he said. "John, will you marry me?"


End file.
